I’ve been looking for the song behind the Rolling Stones’ “Prodigal Son” (from Beggars Banquet, 1968) for many decades. Somehow I knew it existed, someone must have mentioned it when I was a teen but I didn’t actually hear it then or find out who had made it. When I started checking out YouTube regularly a few years back, I searched for it but never found it. When I started doing these Blues Roots posts, I searched for it again, still nothing. Last week it fell in my lap; someone was discussing it on Facebook.

There’s really no excuse for my ignorance. If I had checked current copies of Beggars Banquet, I’d have found Rev. Robert Wilkins’ name. At some point, he sued and his name was added to the record label. But as kids, we didn’t know, and it was kind of a hushed “they didn’t actually write this, so-and-so did.” And now, it’s even listed on the Wikipedia page discussing the biblical parable.

A couple years ago, I thought the opening to this Tommy Johnson song sounded like “Prodigal Son,” so when I heard it, I thought this might have been the song I’d heard about. Here’s Robert Nighthawk’s version of Tommy Johnson’s “Maggie Campbell,” the version I heard.

This is Rev. Robert Wilkins’ “That’s No Way To Get Along”; he recorded this, the first version, in 1929.

This is the version I heard last week, his reworked gospel version, “Prodigal Son,” recorded in the ‘80s.

This is a full album of The Legendary Piedmont Recordings of Rev. Robert Wilkins, “Prodigal Son” appears at 19:40.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1DfldIvzO8

This is Rev. John Wilkins, Rev. Robert Wilkins’ son, performing his father’s classic, “Prodigal Son,” at the North Mississippi Hill Country Picnic, July 5, 2008. See the comments on this video for performance and alternate tuning notes.

“The celebrated rock musicians who performed as the Rolling Stones may not have been converted [religiously like the Rev. Wilkins], but they were listening, and decided to cover Wilkins’s Prodigal Son (a remaking of his That’s No Way To Get Along) on their 1968 release Beggar’s Banquet.” Ted Gioia in Delta Blues

The Rolling Stones, “Prodigal Son” (early mix, with foot stomp in right channel, recorded between May 13 and 23, 1968, London, Olympic Sound Studios, from bootleg).

Live audio of the Stones performing “Prodigal Son” in Oakland, CA, in 1969, after electric power was cut.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VSIfAaFBow

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I’ll bet everyone knows that “You Gotta Move,” the last song on the Rolling Stones’ Sticky Fingers, 1971, is written by Fred McDowell (they put his name on the label from the git-go). Here’s the original.

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Both of the following songs have an interesting Wikipedia entry written about them.

Little Richard’s “Keep a-Knockin’,” August 1957

The comments on this one mention Bonzo’s frustration with recording “Four Sticks”; during a break he busted out this Charles Connor beat, Jimmy Page came up with a riff and “Rock and Roll” came chugging to life.

Led Zeppelin’s “Rock and Roll,” recorded between December 1970 and March 1971, released February 1972

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When Keith Richards jumped up in the middle of the night and recorded the riff that was to become the backbone of “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,” he was playing a permutation of the lumpa-lumpa shuffle beat, the 5, 6, 7 of the chord on the 5th string played against the root on the 6th string, probably best exemplified by the Jimmy Reed/Eddie Taylor shuffles (Jimmy Reed usually gets the credit, but Eddie Taylor was really the fine technician, and he’s stated it was his riff—see the very last song on this post for some primo Eddie Taylor). That’s what the B, B, B, C#, D, D… notes played against the E chord are. Here are the Stones, live in ’65, too bad about the watermark.

Here’s a typical Jimmy Reed/Eddie Taylor shuffle, “Baby What You Want Me to Do?” No extra charge for the entertaining conversation at the beginning. The woman is Mary Reed, known as Mama Reed, Jimmy Reed’s wife. You can hear faintly her on many of his recordings, whispering the lyrics into Jimmy’s ear. She also sings on a few of them.

Here’s Jimmy Reed’s “Bright Lights, Big City” from 1961. There’s a version on YouTube that says it’s with Jimi Hendrix, and you know I wanted to post that one, but it was too good to be true.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQyi8S7qB3M

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There are many, many, many songs that go the other way, where a blues musician picks up a rock song and does it in their own style. Here’s one of the best, 57-year-old Melvin Taylor, doing ZZ Top’s “Blue Jean Blues.” Melvin Taylor himself replied to some of the comments on this video, in addition to being a magnificent player, seems like a nice, down-to-earth guy.

Here’s Ken Saydak’s Version of “Parachute Woman” with Mighty Joe Young on gittar, 1975 in France. I love this version!

Just a cool song, one of the coolest, by Eddie Taylor, “Stroll Out West,” from his I Feel So Bad, 1972. Anyone who loves the blues should listen to as much Eddie Taylor as you can get your hands on.